Progress is being made against the Millennium Development Goal of providing primary level education to all children, and the numbers of learners engaged in secondary education are also increasing. However, measurements simply of the proportions of children and young people attending school, college or university do not tell the whole story. Metrics that address the quality of learners’ experience in education are required and perhaps also metrics that assess the impact of that education on learners’ lives and opportunities. This session will reflect on how the quality of education is measured. It will discuss the consequences of benchmarking these measurements within and between countries, and how the resulting information can be used to focus and implement quality-oriented reforms.